


You’ve left your mark, I’ll leave mine

by TheWordsInMyHead



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellamy Blake is a History & Mythology Nerd, F/M, Meet-Cute, Tattoo Artist Clarke Griffin, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:00:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22552156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWordsInMyHead/pseuds/TheWordsInMyHead
Summary: It’s 11 pm on a Wednesday evening and all Clarke wants to do is close up her shop and go home, but when a mysterious man with curly hair walks in demanding a tattoo, she can’t resist hearing his story.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 13
Kudos: 190





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a couple months ago and then forgot about it, but I figured why not share it anyways. 
> 
> If I can find the orgianal prompt again, I'll add it in later. 
> 
> For now, please enjoy a little bit of Bellarke fluff.

When Clarke was young she had a certain picture of how her life was going to go, how it was going to look. She’d be married by now, maybe with the first of their two children already on the way. They’d have a house in the same neighborhood as her parents, actually their house would look alarming similar to the one she grew up in. She’d be in her last year of residency, just about to decide her specialty, general, like her Mom. 

The differences between that long forgotten fantasy and the reality of her life, the co-owner of a tattoo shop, thousands of miles away from where she grew up with a long list of epically terrible romances, are so stark, it’s nearly laughable. 

It’s not that she thinks one version of events is better than another. She’s happy with her life and she’s sure she could have been if circumstances had been different, but the picture of who she is verse who she could have been, well, it’s an interesting question to consider as she spins around on a stool, the empty establishment a blur of colours, desperately trying to entertain herself until it’s time to close. 

With another forlorn glance at the slowing clicking clock, Clarke decides to call it. After all, who’s going to be looking to get a tattoo at 11 pm on a Wednesday evening. 

She stands up from her seat and sways a bit to the side. Chuckling to herself at the dizzy sensation that washes over her, she grabs on to the edge of the counter to steady herself and then starts the tedious process of shutting the place down. 

She cleans up the mess she made in her boredom, organizes the different inks so they’re all in the proper place, tallies up their sales for the day and then checks the scheduling book for tomorrow to make sure everything is prepared. Just as she’s about to switch off the lights and lock the place up, the chime above the door goes off signalling a new customer. 

Smiling wryly to herself, she walks out into the front area and finds a man staring dazedly at the artful graffiti on the walls. _Great_ she thinks watching him spin around as if he is trying to figure out what he’s doing here, _another drunkard._

She waits in silence for a moment, hoping that he’ll just leave and she’ll be able to get home without much more delay.

“Hello!” he says smiling brightly when he spots her, “I’d like to get a tattoo.” 

He almost trips on his way over to her, but manages to right himself before it’s too late. She just shakes her head in exasperation. Who ever thought it was a good idea to have a tattoo parlour open this late. _Roan_ , she thinks this an internal groan, _she’s going to blame Roan_. Still, she puts on her best firm but kind customer smile, “I’m sorry, we are closed. You can come back tomorrow though.”

“Please,” the man in front of her pleads, his brown eyes large and bright in the dim light of the room. 

“I don’t permanently mark up drunk people, sorry buddy,” she says with humour in her voice as she slowly tries shuffle him towards the exit with her body. 

“No!” he shouts running his hand through his hair in frustration and making the crazy curls stand up even higher “It has to be now!” 

“If you really want it, you’ll still want it when the sun rises and you’ve sobered up,” she reassures him still pushing him backwards towards the door. These types of situations, a clearly intoxicated person being denied what they want, can get messy quickly, especially since she’s the only one around. Thankfully, despite the volume of his voice, he seems polite and sad rather than angry and belligerent. 

“I get that, I do, but I need this to happen tonight,” he responds, a quiet desperation in his voice that gives her pause. 

“If this is a dare, so help me god,” she mutters under her breath. 

“What? Of course not!” he retorts aghast, “How stupid to I look?”

She looks him up and down, he’s in a pair of dark jeans and a button down shirt, a good look for him, she can’t help but acknowledge. He probably came from a night out with friends or a date. She looks again, it definitely had the potential to be date attire, but whatever togetherness he might have had at the start of the night is now long gone. His shirt is undone and wrinkled all over, his hair tousled in a way that is far past stylish. Honestly, he seems like a bit of a mess, but then again so is she. 

Dates are the worst. 

“Okay,” she says resigning herself to the fact that he’s caught her interest and she’s not leaving any time soon, “tell me, why do you need this tattoo tonight?”

“It’s just everyone, my sister, my friends, they all think I’m too cautious, too… up tight. They think I don’t know how to have fun.” He pouts at her, like full on pouts and it’s cute, it shouldn’t be, but it is and she’s falling for it. 

Against her better judgment she stops ushering him back. In the span of five minutes this man with his charming smile and sad eyes has managed to endear himself to her.

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being cautious. Some people say predictable, but really they mean reliable; they say boring, but you know that if there’s ever a problem, it’s you that they are coming to first,” she tells him fiercely, probably more fiercely than she should when talking to a stranger in the middle of the night, but it’s something that resonates with her, it’s a part of herself that has taken her a long time and a lot of encouragement from her friends to come to terms with, to accept. After all, there’s no way that this little shop of theirs would have succeeded if she weren’t as neurotic about the little details as she is.

“I know,” he says with a sigh “I know that you’re right and for the most part I'm fine with being that person, but sometimes I just want to remind everyone that I could be different…” 

“And thus, the brilliant idea to get a tattoo,” she teases. 

“Yeah,” he responds sheepishly ducking his head in embarrassment 

“Which I will happily give you tomorrow, if you still want it.” she continues on ignoring his embarrassment.

“There’s absolutely no way that I’m going to be able to get you to it now, right?” he asks eyeing at her with a look and a grin that she’s sure he knows the power of. 

“Nope,’ she says resolutely with a small laugh at his antics, “tomorrow, I promise.”

“See, the thing is…” he adds after a beat of hesitation, “sober me isn’t going to do this so it’s really now or never.” He looks so hopeful, like she has the power to change his life with a few strokes of ink, and it’s a rush that she never thought she’d get when she gave up the dream of becoming a doctor.

She wants to help him, probably a lot more than she should, but her logic is still stopping her. Even if he’s genuine, and she believes he is, he could still wake up tomorrow morning and regret it. Right now, their business couldn’t survive the bad press of that, but also, she’s not sure if she can live with being something he regrets. 

Just as she’s about to deny him for a third and finale time, she gets an idea, images of her and Wells as children with a bunch of markers spread out around them flash before her eyes. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll do it, just give me a second.” She gestures for him to follow her into the back as she mentally calculates how many different colours she can locate in her mind. Black should be easy, blue and red too. 

“All set,” she says after a moment, throwing the markers on the table normally reserved for spare ink and then taking a seat on her regular stool, “what do you want?” 

He positions himself comfortably on the chair, thinking carefully. “Do you think— how about Cadmus” he eventually decides. 

“A what?” she questions with a laugh. She doesn’t know what she was expecting him to say, maybe a Chinese symbol or a geometric design, the kind of tattoos people tend to get impulsively. Not some random thing she’s never heard of before.

“Not a what, a who!” he retorts sitting up from his relaxed position, looking at her in outrage like it’s ridiculous that she wouldn’t know that. “He was the founder and the first king of Thebes, said to be responsible for creating the alphabet.” 

She can’t help, but smile at how worked up he’s getting, he really is a complete nerd. “okay, do you have a picture or something I can work off of?”

The look he sends her is so unimpressed that she loses control of her ability to hold in her laughter. 

“It’s Ancient Greek myth. There are no pictures.”

She cuts him off with a raised hand and a genuine smile, sensing another tangent. “Okay, okay just give me a second, I’ll grab some paper and then you can tell me all about him.” 

As he tells her the tale of Cadmus, how his sister was kidnapped by a disguised Zeus and how he was sent on a great quest to find her, how in the process of looking for his sister, he was granted favour and told to build a city, of the many adventures he went on through his life and the things he accomplished. While he talks, she slowly pulls a picture together letting his soothing voice and the wonder in his tone as he shares a story that he’s undoubtedly heard a million types, guide her hand. 

With one final touch, she puts down her pencil and shows him the finished product. She’s quite pleased with it, it’s simple, a basic outline of a crouched Cadmus in front of the oracle of Delphi’s alter desperate to find his sister, all black with smooth lines and bold shadows. There were probably more obvious moments to pick, the hero enthralled in a deadly battle with the serpent like dragon, son of Area or sacrificing the magical guiding cow to Athena, but for some reason it’s that moment that seemed to stand out to her, and to him, the most. He mentioned a sister earlier, she can’t help but wonder what the story is there. 

“It looks great,” he tells her enthusiastically, handing the paper back to her. 

She smiles slightly to herself, maybe if he wakes up tomorrow and doesn’t regret it, she’ll be able to do this for real. She likes what she has now, but with more time and better tools available, she’s certain she could love it. 

Time loses all meaning as she works. There’s something about this process, the steady beat of a tool in her head creating an image, that fills her with a sense of peace. On the days where she starts to wonder if she made the right choice choosing this path, all she has to do is pick a pen and lose herself into a world of her own creation, to be reminded that this is where she’s meant to be. 

“I thought tattoos were supposed to hurt…” he remarks casually as she starts shading in the outer edges. 

She pauses with the tip of her marker hovering over his skin. So far he hasn’t questioned anything, either because he’s too intoxicated to care or just because he doesn’t know anything about the tattoo process. She’s betting it’s the latter. “Maybe I’m just that good,” she responds smoothly grinning to herself. 

“Oh I’m sure you are,” he says with a laugh, the flirtatious undertones clear in his answering smirk. 

“Stop laughing,” she instructs with mock seriousness, “Or you’re going to end up with a mess on your arm.”

He stays still for the rest of the piece, watching her work with quiet concentration, but the grin remains, on his face and hers. 

“All done,” she says running her hand across the protective layer she put down on top of the marker one last time to check for weak spots. It’s not going to last forever, but it should hold up for a few days. Hopefully long enough for him to see it and remember her. 

They walk together into the front of the space, but neither of them makes any motion to move things along. It’s bizard, Clarke thinks as they stand there awkwardly trying to avoid the inevitable goodbye, when he came in just over an hour ago, she wanted nothing more than for him to leave quickly. Now though, she’d do just about anything to prolong their time together. 

“Oh I need to pay you,” he says suddenly with a sheepish smile, pulling out his wallet. 

She waves her hand at him, “It's fine.”

“No I insist.”

She’s tempted to accept his offer, not because she needs the money or wants compensation for her time, but because it’d make it so much easier to track him down again with that information. She hesitates for long enough that he’s almost got his card out of the slot, but eventually she shakes her head no. If it’s meant to be, he’ll come back on his own. 

“You’re sure?” he asks again. 

“How about this,” she says reaching behind her to grab a card out of holder on the front desk, “if you ever know of anyone wanting a tattoo, send them my way.” 

It never hurts to give fate a little helping hand.

He takes the card easily, their hands brushing softly against each other for a moment sending tingles through her body as though she hadn’t just spent the last 30 minutes with her hands pressed against his strong forearm. He looks it over thoughtfully and then pushes it into his pocket. 

It’s clear that their time is up, she knows it, he knows it, but still they linger watching each other until a loud horn knocks them out of whatever trance they were in. 

“I should..” he starts gesturing to the door.

“Yeah,” she agrees with a nod. 

“Yeah.”

She watches him walk away, admiring his silhouette against the lamp light, hoping desperately that this won’t be the last time she ever sees him. 

_Please come back._

“I never got your name?” he says twisting his head around to face her before walking out the door. 

“Clarke,” she answers with a small smile tucking a loose piece of hair behind her ear. 

“Thanks, Clarke,” he says with one last look and then he’s gone, lost into the night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This picks up where the last chapter left off from Bellamy's perspective. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who commented, kudo and bookmarked it, I hope you like this follow up, it's for you.

Bellamy has always been a light sleeper, the product of growing up in a sketchy neighborhood and feeling, if not being, responsible for a child, yet when he wakes up, it’s with a start. His head feels heavy and his mouth dry; the world blurs before his eyes and it’s not just because he isn't wearing his glasses. 

Despite the grogginess, his heart still pounds. He didn’t wake up for no reason, he knows that instinctively. 

He blames his slow moving brain for the extra seconds it takes him to identify his sister sitting half on top of him with a bright grin, but once he does (after taking a quick second to ensure that everything seems fine with her and there are no emergencies needing his immediate attention) he falls back onto his pillow with a groan. 

“You know, when you moved out I thought that this would finally be over,” he grumbles. 

“No you didn’t,” she says with a laugh that sounds like a smirk. 

For his part, he just lets out a huff, raising his arm up to cover his face; half to help alleviate the headache pounding at his temples, but mostly to hide the smile threatening to find its way onto his lips. _She’s not wrong._

“What are you even doing here?” He looks over at the obnoxiously large clock on his nightstand, squinting to make out the numbers, “at 7:30 on a Thursday? During the first week of summer break?”

“I needed to make sure you weren’t dead,” she deadpans. 

“Really?” he responds incredulously. 

“Yes!” she says with way too much energy, “I could practically hear your lecture in my head—”

She lowers her voice, doing a terrible impression of him, “Octavia, you need to call me, for all I know you could be in a ditch; you could have been kidnapped and be halfway across the country; you could have—”

He reaches up with his free and to cover her mouth, muffling the noise until finally she takes the hint and stops. He takes a moment to enjoy the silence, sure that it’s not going to last long. 

She glares at him for a moment in defiance and then falls on to the bed next to him, snuggling up against him like she used to do growing up whenever the noises outside got too loud or their Mom neglected to come home too many days in a row. 

When he looks over at her, there’s genuine concern in her eyes and any of the little annoyance he was holding onto for the unappreciated wake up, vanishes. 

“I tried to call a couple times first,” she tells him softly. 

Nodding his head slightly, he accepts her explanation with an easy smile that few people other than her have ever managed to bring out. His brows pull together though as he tries to locate his phone in his mind. The whole night is a bit of a blur; he remembers his disastrous date well enough and then the multiple shots that preceded the disastrous date. 

“I expected to hear from you last night,” Octavia says following his thoughts, “first to hear about dinner—”

He must make a face because she cuts off abruptly, “but then Miller called and said that you sounded mopy so I expected you to just show up at the apartment…” 

If he really focuses, he can almost remember talking to his friend. Then there’s just images, a crowded bar, an empty street, a wall full of colours. Faintly, he recalls the sharp smell of antiseptic and then something sweeter. The word that comes to his mind is sunshine, but he quickly shakes his head to vanish the ridiculous thought. 

“What happened?” she asks, “I thought things were going well?”

He shrugs his shoulders, just as unsure of what went wrong. He had been seeing Echo on and off for the last six months and he actually thought it might be going somewhere this time. Until he hadn’t wanted to spend all night in a dingy club and that was it. “Apparently, I don’t know how to have fun.” 

“What a bitch.” 

“Octavia,” he reprimands gently even though he’s inclined to agree. He’s supposed to be a good example after all. 

“What?” she says with exasperation, “it’s true.” 

Shaking his head at her antics, he feels a warmth spread through him at her unwavering support. “You’ve said the same thing countless times.”

“Sure,” she relents, “but I’m your sister, it’s my duty to remind you how lame you are." She sits up straighter, "Let’s be clear, you’re a dork who’s favorite pastime is watching the history channel and thinks that 10:00 pm is a reasonable time for a 28 year old to _turn in for the night_ , but you’re MY dork. No one gets to screw with you.” 

“Thanks O,” he tells her sarcastically, but with no heat; a fond grin on his face. 

“Great!” she says, bouncing off the bed and making her way out of the room, “now pull yourself together and come make me some pancakes.” 

He lets out an unexpected laugh at the familiarity of the exchange. 

“Brat!,” he yells at her retreating form, “I raised you better than this!”

“And take a shower!” she responds ignoring his comments entirely, “you stink.”

Laughing quietly to himself, he takes another moment to enjoy the warmth of his bed before grabbing his glasses off the nightstand and moving to the attached bathroom. 

He looks into the mirror with a grimace. His hair is a mess, the little bit of product he’d put in it last night to try and control it, now only serving to accentuate the craziness; his eyes look tired behind the large frames and the shadow of a beard lines his jaw. His gaze moves lower, taking in the half unbuttoned, completely wrinkled dress shirt. With a sigh, he shoves the offending garment off his shoulders, wondering what he’s doing with his life. He’s not unhappy, not by a long shot, but he still longs for something more. The memory of an encouraging hand tickles at the back of his mind. 

He runs his hands through his hair in frustration. 

It’s only then that the black figurine standing out stark against his toned arm registers in his reflection. He stares at it for a moment, not sure how to process it or maybe unable to process and then his eyes go wide. 

Out of all of the things that his drunk self could do, this is what he went with. He lets his head fall forward with a groan, but then his eye catches the tattoo and he can’t help but marvel at its beauty. The sharp lines and little intricates. Looking at it fully now, it is easy to recognize the figure as Cadmus head bent low at Delphi’s altar, desperate for some wisdom. Despite it all, a half smile works its way onto his face. If he has to have something pitmentitly marking his skin for the rest of his life, this is pretty great. 

Faintly, he hears Octaiva rummaging around in the kitchen and that brings him straight back down to reality. She’s never going to let him live this down. With another groan, he decided to forgo the requested shower, and go straight into the kitchen. 

For a brief second, standing in the doorway to his bedroom, he considers trying to hide the mark from his sister. After all she hadn’t spotted it earlier, but he gives up that train of thought almost instantly. He doesn’t know what the hell to do with a tattoo and he’s not about to trust random people on the internet. 

Octavia should know what to do; it doesn’t hurt at all yet, but he knows that things can change quickly and he’s not taking any chances. She’ll help him. After she stops laughing. He grimaces, suddenly regretting his outburst when she can home at 16 with ink all over her shoulder. It was nearly 10 years ago, but he’s sure she remembers the following argument just as clearly as he does. 

She doesn’t look up at him when he steps into the space, content to continue searching through his cupboards looking for who knows what. “I didn’t hear the shower running, but I don’t care, I need help. For someone who loves order, nothing is where it should be,” she tells him teasingly. 

He smiles slightly to himself as he watches her, but remains quiet, stuck on the threshold of the room. As the seconds turn into minutes and his silence becomes more prominent, she turns to look at him. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks, taking one look at his probably pale face. 

He doesn’t quite understand why he’s so nervous. Yes, she’ll make fun of him, but she does that all the time anyways and he loves it, even if it’s begrudgingly. No, it has more to do with him and what the tattoo and the newly failed relationship says about him. He’s always been who he has to be, for O, for his Mom. His experiences shaped him and he’s largely fine with who that person is; who he is. Or at least he thought he was until he woke up with a tattoo on his arm and no memory of how he came to get it. 

The person who got it was impulsive; the one who decided to take the multiple sympathy shots after being left was reckless and those are two adjectives he would never have thought to describe himself as. Even if the people around him don’t like it, he’s cautious. 

He hears the echo of a female voice in his head, sweet with compassion and understanding. _There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being cautious._

Logically, he knows that one night doesn’t dismiss 30 years of behaviour, but it’s shaken him. It’s out of character and he’s always thought of himself as predictable. 

“I figured out what I did last night…” even as he says it, he knows it’s not quite right, he’s missing something, something important. The mysterious voice is proof, but he doesn’t get the chance to linger on the feeling, Octavia demanding his attention with a pointed “and... “ 

“I got a tattoo,” he tells her sheepishly. 

“You didn’t!” 

“Oh, I definitely did,” he responds with a frown. 

Her face lights up with unrestricted glee. She rushes towards him, “let me see! Where is it?” 

He fights off her prodding for a moment, trying somewhat unsuccessfully to mask his amusement with a series of curses and grumbles, before finally relenting, shoving his arm forward so that the mark is right in her view. 

She looks at it, tracing the edge of the black lines with her finger tip contemplatively, and then lets out a laugh. 

“What?” he asks startled and a little affronted, but she is not paying any attention to him. He watches half amused, half annoyed as she slowly slides to the ground, her entire body shaking with laughter. It’s not _that_ amusing.

It takes her a few more moments and several failed attempts to speak while he stands, staring down at her with his arms crossed until eventually, she manages to get herself together. 

“You didn’t,” she answers simply, eyes glistening with mirth. 

He raises his eyebrows confused and she takes pity on him, “You didn’t get a tattoo.” 

Rolling his eyes, he steps over her legs intending to find himself a cup of coffee before dealing with it all, but she stops him before he can take more than a few steps. 

“It’s marker,” she tells him bluntly. 

He turns to face her, eyes wide. “No…?” 

Laughter threatens to pull at her features, but she manages to get it together. “Bell, tattoos hurt… what did you think, your skin just healed overnight?”

“But...” he hears the voice faintly in his head again. _Maybe I’m just that good._

He tries to focus on the voice, to fill in the missing pieces, but his memories of the previous night are still a foggy haze. Still, he enjoys the feeling of peace the voice gives him. 

“So no tattoo then?” he asks a little defeated, coming back to the present. 

She watches him for a moment, something too close to suspicion on her face, but then she’s up on her feet and patting him on the shoulder with amusement. “You’re such a dork. Who gets a permanent marker tattoo.”  


\------------------------------------------------------------

  
Soft blond waves and clear blue eyes. A sweet laugh and a knowing smile. Little glimpses of memory flash through his mind all day. He’ll look down at his arm and a smile comes unbeknownst to his face.

By the time the sun is hanging low in the sky, he’s pieced together a mostly complete recollection of his night. He remembers the fight with Echo, the shots at the bar, the call to Miller and then somehow wandering into a tattoo parlour. 

He manages to wait until Octavia has left, filled with not only the promised pancakes, but also dinner, before he’s pulling out his computer and loading up google maps. From there he loses the rest of his evening squinting at the screen trying to figure out probable places he could have gone. He didn’t think it would be that hard, he knows where he started and there’s only so far that he could have gotten on foot, but there are a surprising number of tattoo shops in their downtown. 

Hours laters, he lets his head fall back against the couch in defeat. He’s narrowed it down, but there’s no way to be sure. At least not as sure as he’d like. A wave of regret flashes through him, hot and sharp at the lack of results, not that he actually knows what he’d do with the information. 

The urge to find his bright eyed girl with her compassionate heart and sharp tongue, is unmistakable, but even if he could find her, he doesn’t know that he would. 

If the last 24 hours have shown him anything, it’s that he needs to take a look at his life. He has to find his place outside of who he is for other people. He needs to figure out what he’s doing and he’s not sure he can do it with someone else.

He feels his eyes start to drift shut, tried after the last night and hours of trying to examine the backgrounds of hundreds of photos to find something recognizable. 

With his eyes shut, head resting back against the worn couch cushion, the memories play back more clearly. He hears himself, voice deep and desperate, begging her for the chance to be different. Then he sees her, grabbing his hand and pulling him into the back with a mischievous smile glowing on her face. The memory continues, some details as clear and crisp as if he were living them for the first time while others, the hazy blur of dreams. 

He’s just about to drift off to sleep when the end of the memory comes into focus; her shyly tucking a peice of hair behind her ear, him carelessly shoving a card into his pocket, too enthralled with her to give it more than a second’s glance. 

It takes him a few minutes to follow the memory and realize the significance of the recollection, then he’s up, off the couch with an energy that’s normally reserved for his sister. 

He pulls his room apart in his hast, thankful that he decided to put off doing laundry in exchange for trying to find his mystery girl. When he retrieves the pants, crumpled up on the floor, he wastes no time before digging his hand into the pocket and pulling out the desired card, but he hesitates once it’s in his hand. 

Keeping his fist closed tightly around the stiff paper, he forces a deep breath into his lungs. For some inexplicable reason, he’s nervous, as though the moment he looks down will change everything. One look at her name and that will be the start of a whole new life. 

It’s ridiculous, he knows it is, but as Octavia also likes to remind him, he’s often overly sentimental too. The sentiment is only proven when he looks down and reads her name: _Clarke Griffin, Ark Ink._

He lets out a breath, some tension loosening from his shoulders while a different sort takes its place. He glances quickly towards the clock and then back down at the card in his hand to check the hours. They’re open. He could go and see her right now. The tug he feels in his heart to go is stronger than he’d ever imagine, still he holds off. Part of it is embarrassment, he can only imagine what ridiculous things he said that he hasn’t remembered, but more than that, it’s a feeling of unpreparedness. 

He doesn’t know how many chances he’s going to get with her, with Clarke, and he desperately doesn’t want to mess it up. With that in mind, he settles down for the night, content to let her live in his dreams for now.  


\------------------------------------------------------------

  
The urge to go visit her little shop is just as intense when he wakes up the next morning, bright and alert like normal, but still he waits. He wonders blatantly as he eats a simple breakfast of cereal, whether Miller’s assessment that he doesn’t know how to be happy, actually carries some weight. He’d always assumed that it was just another case of the people around him not totally understanding him. Now in the light of day, though, he wonders why he feels the need to wait to see her; if it’s more based in self sabotage than he’d like to admit.

Lucky, he has a lot to distract himself with. Washing his bowl quickly in the sink, he gets ready to head off to his first job of the day. He really doesn’t have to be working this much, hell he doesn’t need to be working at all, not with the mostly secure teaching job he’s managed to settle into, but old habits are hard to break. Sooner than later, he knows that Lincoln is going to finally work up the nerve to give Octavia the ring he got last month and when that time comes, well, he wants his sister to be able to buy whatever ridiculous wedding dress it is that she wants. 

Between landscaping in the mornings and bartending at nights, he’s able to keep himself occupied over the next three days. So busy that it would be ridiculous to even contemplate going to see her even if she’s never far from his thoughts. He carries the card she gave him with him throughout it all, pulling it out to examine it whenever he’s got a free moment, turning it over and over in his hands until the once sharp corners and rounded down with wear. 

Like with the card, he takes careful measures to keep the tattoo on his skin for as long as possible, showering with a bag on his arm like he has a cast. Yet, despite his care, it eventually starts to fade away beyond recognition and with it so does his resistance. 

When he finds himself at a little Mexican restaurant downtown for lunch, less than a week after his encounter with Clarke, he tells himself that it's coincidence, but he knows it’s a lie. While the tacos are as great as the website advertises, it is its proximity to a certain tattoo shop that’s the ultimate draw. 

The chime over the door to the shop rings when he pushes it open 15 minutes later, sending a rush of memories through him. He steps inside, anticipation racing through him and then has to squint his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. 

“How can I help you? '' he hears a deep voice ask and he feels a rush of disappointment. 

He steps up to the counter and is able to spot a tall man with long hair and huge arms.

“Ummm,” he starts to say, rubbing the back of his neck self consciously. For all that he’s thought about this moment, he hadn’t thought about what he’d do when it came and he certainly hadn’t thought about what he’d do if she wasn’t here. 

The man in front of him watches him with thinly veiled amusement, crossing his muscular arms across his chest. “Maybe a tattoo?”

He shakes his head quickly, a wave of horror rushing through him. For as much he’s intrigued by Clarke and as much as he enjoyed the image on his arm while it lasted, the thought of anything that perminte sends a shiver down his spine. 

“I was here last week,” he explains, finally finding his voice. “Last Wednesday night,” he adds on after a moment. 

Across from him the man’s brow furrows in confusion and then his eyes widen, a smirk finding its way onto his face.

“Oh it you,” he says, somehow making the simple statement sound suggestive, “I’m Roan.”

He reaches out to shake the offered hand, still somewhat confused, but not about to be rude. 

“You’re looking for Clarke then?” he guesses correctly, eyeing him up in a way that makes him more nervous. For one second, he thinks maybe he read the entire situation totally wrong and that she was only being nice to him because he was a customer, but that thought quickly slides away. Besides, he wasn’t actually a customer, she never let him pay. 

Roan continues, “she should be—”

The bell over the door tinkles again and in walks Clarke. She has a pair of overly large sunglasses perched on her nose, the kind that are supposed to be cool, but he’s never quite understood the appeal before; a pair of dark skinny jeans with so many rips in them that it’d be unfair the call them pants and a tank top with a what he assumes is a band logo that he’s never heard of. 

It shouldn’t work, appearance wise, she’s far from what he’d normally go for, but it doesn’t matter. Every part of her calls out to him. She’s even more breathtaking than he remembered. 

Pushing her sunglasses onto her head, she pauses just inside the doorway to look at him. 

“Hi,” she says softly after a moment, a grin making its way onto her face. 

“Hi,” he says back feeling breathless. 

“Hi,” she repeats and then laughs, the ridiculousness of the situation getting to her. 

He lets out his own little chuckle, but otherwise remains silent. He watches as she brushes her hands against her thighs and then bites her lip. 

“I was beginning to think that you weren’t going to show up,” she tells him, but there’s no judgement.

He shrugs a little, unsure of what to say or maybe just unsure if what he has to say is enough. “I needed to be certain.”

“And are you?” she asks, not missing a beat, a careful smile still on her face. 

And then with that he is. She doesn’t need an explanation, doesn’t even want on; she just gets it. The feeling of rightness that he’s been searching for settles onto him. 

“Would you like to go out with me some time?” he asks, nervous despite being nearly positive that she’ll say yes. 

“Roan,” she calls out to the man he hadn’t realised had left instead of answering him, “I’m taking my break.” 

“You just got here!” he responds from somewhere in the back.

For a minute, he worries that he is going to get her in trouble, but one look at the grin still firmly in place on her face and his concerns disappear. 

“Watch out or I just won’t come back at all,” she teases her friend with a smirk while he watches on fondly.

“And here I assumed that you wouldn’t. Go play with your new man!” he commands. 

She shakes her head in amusement, a faint blush covering her cheeks, before grabbing his hand and pulling him out the door. 

They go to the little cafe a few doors down. The one, he notes with amusement, that was next on his list of places to casually visit in the hopes of seeing her. He gets a plain coffee, too overwhelmed by the long list of complex drinks to make a more adventurous choice while she orders a fancy one that looks more like a milkshake than anything when it comes out. 

Despite their apparent differences in style, in coffee preference, they sit at a little table in the corner talking for hours without one awkward lull in the conversation. 

She doesn’t end up going back to work after. 

He shows up a few days later at the shop to grab a quick dinner with her before his shift at the bar. They end up at his third option for not so accidentally running into her, a food truck that offers the best Ethiopian food he’s ever tasted. 

On their six month anniversary, he gets Cadmus permanently marked on his forearm. Not the same design, not exactly, but a new one that she spent sleepy Sunday’s in bed and slow late nights at work perfecting. 

A year later, on the eve of their wedding they get matching tattoos, a puzzle piece on each of their wrists. 

A few years later he gets the constellation Lyra over his heart; the cluster of stars celebrating the birth of their daughter and the infinite joy she brings him. 

He’s never going to be the guy with sleeves of tattoos, despite his love for her and the art she creates, they are never going to be his thing. Still, he can’t help admiring the marks whenever they catch his eye. They’re special, each and every one of them in their own way; not only for the events he got them for, but also for what they represent. She’s made so much more of an impact on his life than a few marks could ever quantify, but it’s a start. A physical declaration of something so infinite that he doesn’t have the words. 

He doesn’t believe in fate, not really; he knows that you have to make your own, but when he thinks about their meeting and all the little things that had to come together to make it possible, well, he almost believes.


End file.
